Regrets
by gwmclintock9
Summary: She found a type of happiness she never thought possible, but for that, she gave up everything she ever cared about. Temperance Brennan didn't have too many regrets in her life, but right now, they were all she had left.


A/N: This might be the start of an AU story where Bones decided to leave with Sully. I really was wondering what your impressions of the story so far. There isn't any concrete here, except that she left and what she is feeling at the moment. This is how I think she would react to the situation, if you see differently, feel free to tell me. Thank you for taking the time to read this and review if you could.

**I0I**

Temperance Brennan was a woman of few regrets.

She never regretted becoming an forensic anthropologist, traveling the world and studying different cultures. She always loved that.

She never regretted joining the Jeffersonian, working with some of the brightest people she had even known. People that became her close friends, and people she considered her family.

She never regretted going out into the field, and starting a partnership with a man by the name of Special Agent Seeley Booth. She had grown to love that. She had even added Booth to the members in her family, though she didn't quite know how to classify him in her family.

Even when she was kidnapped, and buried alive, she didn't regret her work with Booth. He was always there for her, always looking out for her, even if he thought she didn't know. He wouldn't be the alpha-male that he was if he didn't.

He became a close friend, one of her best. He even knew some things that Angela didn't about her past, but then again Angela knew some things about her present that even Temperance knew not to tell Booth. Either way, the two of them were her closest friends, and helped move her out of the realm of societal loneliness to accepting people into her circle.

Like Sully.

Though, not quite.

Sully actually was the source of her current problem, and right now, a major regret in her life.

Sully was the reason she was out here, out in the Caribbean, while he traveled the world for a year. She had agreed to go for part of it, unwilling to sacrifice everything she had back home. She wanted to find happiness, and at the moment she said yes, she thought she had.

But that was before this happened. Before she received the call from Angela.

**I0I**

_"Brennan."_

_"Bren..." Her voice was thick, like she was having a hard time coming up with words. That wasn't like Angela. In fact, she was never like that. Temperance felt her throat constrict at all the thoughts that were running through her mind. _

_She stopped in the middle of the market that she currently was in. It was one of the few places that she had managed Sully to let her off on her own for a while. He wanted to spend so much time on the sea, and while that was enjoyable, she felt like she was missing something by not being on land, by missing these cultures they were passing by. _

_"What is it Ange?" She closed her eyes, concentrating on her family, the makeshift one that she had made at the Jeffersonian, and her real one, or at least what remained of her real one, her father and brother. _

_Angela didn't speak for a long time, and she knew it was bad. Temperance's mind began to focus on her partner's image, begging the darkness that it wasn't him. It couldn't be him. He was her protector. He was her friend. He was her..._

_"It's Booth..." _

_She felt herself crumble to the ground. It couldn't be him. She felt a strong wall that she had built come tumbling down as she listen to Angela ask where she was. Temperance regained her composure, shutting the door to her heart. She needed to get back home. She needed to be with her friends. She needed to see Booth.  
_

_Relaying her location to Angela, she was told that Hodgins would send out a plane to meet her in a few hours. She told them she would be waiting at the airport in half that. _

**I0I**

That was where she found herself. She didn't know what type of danger Booth was in, or if he was hurt, or if he was even alive, or if -

She stopped, froze in her tracks as she held onto her passport.

No.

No. He was not dead, there was no way he could be. She would know. She would know if he was dead, because she was would feel it. She had faith in him that he was alive, that he would be alright.

She put her passport into her bag, that carried only a days worth of clothing, her laptop, and Jasper. She needed Jasper to hold onto to, a talisman, to give her the strength she needed. It was foolish, illogical, and impractical to believe in such things. But she needed to right now. She need all that and more just to help push back the despair that was growing inside of her.

"What happened?" Sully was back from wherever he went off to. Fishing probably. He really did enjoy that.

"It's Booth." She pushed past him and quickly walked to the edge of the deck. She could her the pounding of his footsteps behind her. She gripped her bag tighter to her.

Sully had dropped anchor about a mile offshore, where several other boats were, fishing or just relaxing in the sun. She had taken the small motorboat inland and just returned. Now she was ready to head back out. She looked to the water and the motor boat. She did not want to deal with it. She did not want to deal with Sully's questions. All she wanted was to get on that plane and get back to D.C.

"Tempe, tell me." His hand went to her shoulder, and she couldn't help it: she flinched. His hand snapped off quickly, and she turned to look at him. She kept the tears out of her eyes. No one would see them. Not until she saw him.

"Angela called," Temperance turned and stared him down. It was his fault. If he hadn't asked her to come with him, Booth would be okay. She knew it was illogical, she knew that she also was to blame. She knew that she had to calm down before she said something she regretted. But she regretted too much at the moment to care what she thought, what she felt. "I need to go."

"Not before telling me what is going on," Sully said. He stepped in front of her, blocking her way to the small boat.

"I don't know, that's why I've got to go," she tried to push him out of the way, but he didn't budge. She glared at him, trying with her mind to get him to budge. Booth had shown her a movie where a guy was able to do something like that, Space Fight or something like that.

She bit her tongue to bite back the tears. She needed to get out of there. Now.

"I'm not letting you leave until you tell me what's going on," Sully said. He took a step forward, threatening her, or at least trying to. She knew he never would, but she would hurt him to get to Booth. It was because of Sully that Booth was in this mess, and it was because of her as well. She left him. She left her partner to wherever hell he was going through.

She turned and walked to the other side of the boat, the one facing the island. She leaned up against the railing, holding her bag tightly to her chest. "I need to go, Sully." She leaned back and fell into the ocean.

Water rushed around her as she plunged in. She swam under the water for a bit before coming up for air. She hadn't wanted to swim to shore, but she was thankful for the waterproof bag Booth had given her.

Booth...

She let the bag float behind her as she began to kick and swim to shore. The water was colder than she expected, but night was falling. She kept moving, letting the waves take her at times. Her muscles burned with fatigue as she swam, but she wasn't going to stop. She couldn't stop, not until she was in that plane, not until she knew what happened.

She couldn't stop until she told Booth how sorry she was for leaving him like this.

When she got to shore, she could see Sully trying to steer the boat to a nearby dock. He was going to try and catch her it seemed like. Well, he couldn't stop her, nothing could.

She dragged her tired muscles to the street, waving down a passing taxi. Or at least trying to. It took her a while before one finally stopped that she felt safe enough to get in. Several had stopped, but their leering looks made her uncomfortable to even be around for the slightest amount of time.

"Thank you," she told the driver. He gave her a look before exiting the car. He came back with a blanket, giving it to her to wrap up in. She gave him a smile, thankful for something warm to hold her.

She didn't know what happened to Booth. She couldn't think about that right now. Reaching into her bag, she held back the smile and tears that threatened to fall as she found everything perfectly dry, except for the drops of water from her wet hands.

Jasper stared up at her, his eyes almost begging her to hold him. She lifted him reverently out of the bag before zipping it up. The pig sat on her hand, staring forward now, as if it was staring into her heart. Like he was staring into her soul.

She shook her head, water droplets flinging about. Jasper couldn't do anything like that. The whole concept of souls was irrational, a belief in an intangible essence that had no biological back up. Belief in a concept that said when you died, something passed into the beyond.

But so many cultures believed in it, how could so many cultures be wrong? Was the idea of an afterlife meant to be comforting for the families of the deceased, or was there really something beyond this life? Temperance had wrestled with the question long and hard, and if she was honest with herself, she still wrestled with it. She had wrestled with it as a teenager and again when she started to study anthropology. For a long time, she thought she had control of it, that she knew how she felt about God, and all that...stuff. But when she found herself buried alive...

Her grip on Jasper became tighter as she still felt the dirt underneath her fingertips. She could still feel Booth's strong arms on hers as he pulled her out of there. She knew none of that was real, but it didn't stop her brain from firing those synapses that sparked the memories.

She didn't know how long she sat there, concentrating on her breath, when the driver stopped the car. She looked out to see the airfield to her left, thankful that she was only a long plane ride from where she needed to be.

She slipped out of the car, offering the money to the cab driver. He shook his head, giving her a empathic smile. "'No te abandonaré hasta que haya hecho lo que te he dicho.'" She looked at him for a moment, her mind taking a moment to translate. He spoke again before she had a chance to take it all in. "Genesis 28:15." He gave another smile before diving away. She clung to the blanket and bag, standing outside the airport as she watched the cab drive off.

The words struck her, but she didn't know why, they stuck with her. Why did he tell her that?

She placed took out her passport in one hand and put the Jasper back into her bag. Pulling the blanket around her tighter in the wind of the night, she walked into the airport's only doors.

It didn't take her long to get on through what passed for customs here. The fact that she was leaving on a private flight made it a lot easier. She wasn't asked any questions, another fact she was thankful for.

She sat in a seat facing the airfield for about an hour, debating about calling Angela back. In one hand she held Jasper and the other her cell phone. One for strength, and one for answers. She just didn't know which she needed more at the moment.

The plane arrived without fanfare, and she had to be called several times to get her out of her thoughts.

She didn't recognize the pilot, but she never had been one of Hodgins' planes before so she won't know him anyway. He offered to take her bag, but she just gripped it tighter to her chest.

She didn't want to feel this helpless right now. She didn't want to seem like damsel in distress.

But she was.

One of her best friends was hurt, or worse... and she couldn't do anything about it. She could have if she had been there. If she had told Sully no, like she had wanted to in the first place.

But Booth's words caught her by surprise. She didn't expect him to tell her that she should go. It really tossed her for a loop. That didn't sound right in her head, but she knew it was something like that.

It took her forever to make her decision, in fact up until the moment that Sully left. She had the bags packed, but she hadn't decided. What finally made her decide was that she wanted to know if there was happiness outside of work, like Booth had told her. That she could find happiness beyond just what she had.

Looking back, giving up her friends and family for any length of time was not worth that happiness that she had felt with Sully. She shouldn't have left, she should have been there. With Booth.

She was selfish. She shouldn't have put her needs before everyone else's. Even though they all supported her, she still should not have left.

She found a type of happiness she never thought possible, but for that, she gave up everything. Everything else she ever cared for in her life, she gave up. Sitting there as the plane took off, she couldn't help be feel as lost as she did as a child. If only for different reasons.

Temperance Brennan didn't have too many regrets in her life, but right now, they were all she had left.


End file.
